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"What sort of a night, nurse?' "Restless, sir,' said Mrs. Gamp. "Talk much?'

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Middling, sir,' said Mrs. Gamp. "Nothing to the purpose, I suppose?'

"Oh, bless you, no, sir!

Only jargon.'

"Well,' said the doctor:

we must keep him quiet,

Keep the room cool, give him his draughts regularly, and see that he's carefully looked too. That's all!'

"As long as Mrs. Prig and me waits upon him, sir, no fear of that,' said Mrs. Gamp.

"I suppose,' observed Mrs. Prig, when they had courtesied the doctor out, there's nothin' new?'

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"Nothin' at all, my dear,' said Mrs. Gamp. He's rather wearin' in his talk from making up a lot of names: elseways you needn't mind him.'

"Oh! I sha'n't mind him,' Mrs. Prig returned. 'I have somethin' else to think of.'

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"I pays my debts to-night, you know, my dear, and comes afore my time,' said Mrs. Gamp. But Betsey Prig,'-speaking with great feeling, and laying her hand upon her arm, try the cowcumbers, God bless. you!''

In the summer of 1844, Mr. Dickens, with his family, went to Italy, and remained there about a year, having Genoa for his headquarters. On his return, he published a volume of very readable sketches, entitled "Pictures

from Italy." The following extract from this book gives a fine picture of his palatial home in Genoa, and the view from thence:

"There is not in Italy, they say (and I believe them), a lovelier residence than the Palazzo Peschiere, or Palace of the Fishponds, whither we removed as soon as our three months' tenancy of the Pink Jail at Albaro had ceased and determined.

“It stands on a height within the walls of Genoa, but aloof from the town, surrounded by beautiful gardens of its own, adorned with statues, vases, fountains, marble basins, terraces, walks of orange-trees and lemon-trees, groves of roses and camellias. All its apartments are beautiful in their proportions and decorations; but the great hall, some fifty feet in height, with three large windows at the end, overlooking the whole town of Genoa, the harbor, and the neighboring sea, affords one of the most fascinating and delightful prospects in the world. Any house more cheerful and habitable than the great rooms are within, it would be difficult to conceive; and certainly nothing more delicious than the scene without, in sunshine or in moonlight, could be imagined. It is more like an enchanted palace in an Eastern story than a grave and sober lodging.

"How you may wander on, from room to room, and never tire of the wild fancies on the walls and ceilings, as bright in their fresh coloring as if they had been

painted yesterday; or how one floor, or even the great hall which opens on eight other rooms, is a spacious promenade; or how there are corridors and bed-chambers above, which we never use, and rarely visit, and scarcely know the way through; or how there is a view of a perfectly different character on each of the four sides of the building, -matters little. from the hall is like a vision to me. I go back to it in fancy, as I have done in calm reality, a hundred times a day, and stand there, looking out, with the sweet scents from the garden rising up about me, in a perfect dream of happiness.

But that prospect

"There lies all Genoa, in beautiful confusion, with its many churches, monasteries, and convents pointing up into the sunny sky; and down below me, just where the roofs begin, a solitary convent-parapet, fashioned like a gallery, with an iron cross at the end, where sometimes, early in the morning, I have seen a little group of darkveiled nuns gliding sorrowfully to and fro, and stopping now and then to peep down upon the waking world in which they have no part. Old Monte Faccio, brightest of hills in good weather, but sulkiest when storms are coming on, is here, upon the left. The fort within the walls (the good king built it to command the town, and beat the houses of the Genoese about their ears, in case they should be discontented) commands that height upon the right. The broad sea lies beyond, in front there; and that line of coast, beginning by the light-house, and

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tapering away, a mere speck in the rosy distance, is the beautiful coast-road that leads to Nice. The garden near at hand, among the roofs and houses, all red with roses, and fresh with little fountains, is the Acqua Sola, a public promenade, where the military band plays gayly, and the white veils cluster thick, and the Genoese nobility ride round and round and round, in state-clothes and coaches at least, if not in absolute wisdom. Within a stone's-throw, as it seems, the audience of the day-theatre sit; their faces turned this way. But, as the stage is hidden, it is very odd, without a knowledge of the cause, to see their faces change so suddenly from earnestness to laughter, and odder still to hear the rounds upon rounds of applause, rattling in the evening air, to which the curtain falls. But, being Sunday night, they act their best and most attractive play. And now the sun is going down in such magnificent array of red and green and golden light, as neither pen nor pencil could depict; and, to the ringing of the vesper-bells, darkness sets in at once, without a twilight. Then lights begin to shine in Genoa, and on the country-road; and the revolving lantern out at sea there, flashing for an instant on this palace front and portico, illuminates it as if there were a bright moon bursting from behind a cloud, then merges it in deep obscurity. And this, so far as I know, is the only reason why the Genoese avoid it after dark, and think it haunted.

"My memory will haunt it, many nights, in time to

come, but nothing worse, I will engage.

The same

ghost will occasionally sail away, as I did one pleasant autumn evening, into the bright prospect, and snuff the morning air at Marseilles."

A graphic portraiture of Rome, and of Mr. Dickens's emotions on viewing the Coliseum, is in the following words:

"We entered the Eternal City at about four o'clock in the afternoon, on the 30th of January, by the Porta del Popolo, and came immediately (it was a dark, muddy day, and there had been heavy rain) on the skirts of the Carnival. We did not then know that we were only looking at the fag-end of the masks, who were driving slowly round and round the Piazza until they could find a promising opportunity for falling into the stream of carriages, and getting, in good time, into the thick of the festivity; and coming among them so abruptly, all travel-stained and weary, was not coming very well prepared to enjoy the scene.

“We had crossed the Tiber by the Ponte Molle, two or three miles before. It had looked as yellow as it ought to look, and, hurrying on between its worn-away and miry banks, had a promising aspect of desolation and ruin. The masquerade dresses on the fringe of the Carnival did great violence to this promise. There were no great ruins, no solemn tokens of antiquity, to

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